Companion Planting
by sanctum-c
Summary: It has been a year since Sephiroth's remnants threatened the future of the Planet, and Marlene finds herself dreaming of Aerith's church and the flower garden it used to contain. Gift fic.


**A/N:** Gift fic for ariescelestial

The fic was written based on the following prompt:

"Something with Marlene and Aerith, please! Maybe gardening? Could be "what if" (with Aerith living longer), outright AU or maybe even canon (with her appearing in Marlene's dreams), but they've known each other for a while and Aerith wants to teach or show Marlene something now."

* * *

It started with the dreams. Nothing overt, at least not at first. Marlene dismissed the first few as just her mind sorting through things. That was the scientific explanation for the visions and sensations that still clung to her thoughts as she awoke each morning. Wasn't it? Her mind wandered, casually circling a memory, part of a well-worn and thrilling tale of only a few years before. How a man with his memories fractured had met the last of an ancient lineage. How she had once visited him in his dreams forgiving him for her injuries as she took it upon herself ensure the future of the Planet and everyone who lived on it.

There had always between some connection between her and the flower girl, some resonance. It had started from their first meeting and despite the scant hour they spent in each other's company before Aerith was snatched away by the Turks. She'd felt it twice at moments of significance. The first had been during Meteorfall as she had felt the entire Planet below her react to Meteor with the summoning of Holy. She had wondered for a moment as she threw open the window of that tiny house in Kalm; was this a message only she could sense? It had seemed so for a moment before the shuttered windows of the neighbouring houses were thrown open so the children could gaze out as the very lifeblood of the Planet curled across the land and finally dissolved the falling red planet that threatened to destroy them all.

The second... Now surely that was of more significance? As the man named Kadaj successfully fused himself with the final struggling remnants of Jenova, as he caused the re-birth of Sephiroth, as the skies darkened, and as Denzel's Geostigma pulsed with a new pain beyond his existing symptoms, she'd seen something. A confused mixture of images that could only have come from her; glowing materia plunging into water, the sun-dappled interior of the broken-down church and, finally, the flower girl with her hands clasped in prayer, looking upwards with a quiet joy. She'd gasped as the vision came but been rooted to the spot by her companion's hand until the rains fell and Denzel felt the silent pull that sent them running through the streets. They were joined by more and more children of Edge, parents, and curious adults all drawn towards the deserted city of Midgar.

The streets had been damp; Denzel had missed his cure while inside the Seventh Heaven, but not once did he mourn the loss of that opportunity. It was if... as if he knew that Cloud was the one who needed to heal him. It had been an exhausting night of waiting, but finally, as the sun rose, the Planet's champion had formed up out of the water, and he at last cured Denzel.

It had been some time since Marlene's last visit to the church. Its cluster of flowers was now gone; obliterated by the healing pool of water, a gift from the last Cetra to finally destroy the final vestiges of Jenova and Sephiroth. But with that, the young girl's cherished place held a little less appeal. She was slightly frustrated that she could think like that; but she had loved to see the flowers and care for them just a little, imagining how Aerith would have for all those years...

That night she dreamt of the church again; but unlike the previous nights she saw it as it had once been. She had almost woken then, a thought bubbling up that she should visit soon anyway, even if the flowers weren't there, before she sank back into slumber. The church was different. Not newer, but less obviously damaged; the massive pool of water was missing, the pews wrecked and damaged by Tifa's fight were still bolted to the splintery wooden floor. And at one end of the church, in front of the altar, was the patch of grass and flowers so lovingly cared for. Streaming sunlight shifted as she watched the serene interior, the flowers wafting gently in a breeze... And then she saw a flash of pink as a girl with a pink ribbon in her hair walked quickly to the flower-bed, a wicker basket hooked over one arm. She admired the flowers for a moment, before crouching beside them, carefully teasing the blossoms up from the soil and placing them in the basket.

Almost involuntarily the sleeping girl called out the older girl's name; the sound of herself saying "Aerith" shockingly loud to her, but somehow muffled and wrong. None of the sounds were coming out quite right. The girl in pink stiffened, beginning to turn when a roar cut across everything. Marlene's eyes flicked open to see the ceiling of her bedroom. She lay still, her heart racing, stray visions of the church and Aerith dancing in her mind as she tried to find the source of her disturbance. Some noisy vehicle out on the streets? The roar sounded again from her left and was now more clearly a snore. She rolled over to confirm what she had already begun to suspect; Denzel slumped on his back, his mouth yawning wide in a deep slumber. She decided on waiting until he turned in his sleep, but her room mate was proving tenacious today. After what felt like hours she stepped across the cool room to push the boy gently onto his side.

Darting quickly to her bed she tried vainly to resume the interrupted dream, but sleep proved elusive, causing her to toss and turn. One blink later and it was suddenly morning, light streaming in through the window and Tifa shaking her awake; Marlene barely felt she'd slept at all. She'd stumbled through the day after that, never fully awake, but never able to sleep, even after she snuck away from chores to pull her blankets up over her head. That night she was at least given restful slumbers, and for the next week she dreamt only of strange fragmentary moments, nothing she could ever remember or articulate. She was certain, however, that she did not dream of the church or Aerith.

She wondered absently what that had been; why had she dreamt of the Cetra so clearly, dreamt of the church in Sector Five so vividly? Real life rapidly got in the way and those questions were quickly pushed to the back of her mind. At least until she found herself... wandering. It had started innocently enough. She'd been getting ready for bed, brushed her teeth in the bathroom and scurried into her shared room to wait for Tifa to say goodnight. Cloud was unfortunately out on an overnight delivery so it was just the three of them today. Marlene dawdled, flipping through a book as she trudged past Denzel's bed... and then her own. She stopped just before the curtained window, staring at it in confusion. Had she been that engrossed in the book? She'd meant to walk to her own bed and read before their raven-haired guardian came to tuck them in for the night. The book was okay, but she was sure it hadn't occupied her that much. Denzel pushed the door open then, querying what she was doing. Panicked she hastily shoved the book onto the nearby shelf and withdrew another, trying to cover her jumpiness by saying she'd finished the book sooner then she expected.

It wasn't long before she found herself unconsciously gravitating towards the back of the Seventh Heaven, inexplicably dawdling when sent to fetch something from the back rooms of the bar, and would find herself lying as far to the right hand edge of her bed as she was able when she woke each morning. And one morning, deep in thought she found she'd walked through the centre of Edge, on a fairly direct route into Midgar. She fretted slightly, uncertain of whether it could be good to try and broach this state of affairs with either Tifa or Cloud. How would they react to what had been happening to her? Would they worry that far from a strange summons from their departed friend, this was in fact some last twist of the knife from Sephiroth or his remnants? The desire to go to the church to see what awaited her grew in spite of the worry and her concentration felt like it was just bleeding away as she focussed increasingly hard to prevent her mind from wandering...

It wasn't until the day she found herself at the outer wall of Midgar that she gave in to the impulses. Her head cleared as she marched forward into the city. She wasn't afraid; she'd been here many times, and she could feel the comforting weight of the PHS in the bag at her side. Her wandering feet had brought her to Sector Five, which did not surprise her. The packed earth of the slums now had a well-worn path carved into it from the thousands of Geostigma afflicted victims making their pilgrimages to the pool of curative water. There was no one about today however and the church stood silently.

Her footfalls sounded unexpectedly loudly as she crossed the threshold. Before her lay the pool; the surface still coated with floating petals of the flowers that had once bloomed here. She missed those flowers. A thought struck Marlene and she wondered if by any chance the cultivated garden near Aerith and Elmyra's former home deeper within the sector still flourished with colour. It would be quite a trek, but she should be able to make it. She turned to go and then something heavy seemed to settle into her stomach, weighing heavier and heavier as she walked away from the pool. She stopped and the weight lifted. She was to stay here then? She turned quickly back, looking up and around the church. Nothing had changed; no silver-haired apparition had manifested wishing destruction upon the world and intent on taking as bait once more.

Her eyes alighted on the door at the far end of the church. She had never had the opportunity to look back there, the inner-sanctum of this place of peace and healing. Maybe there would be an overlooked memento... Carefully she picked her way around the edge of the pool; there was little to risk by falling in, but she did not particularly want to wander around in damp clothes. Her fingers danced along the hilt of the Buster Sword as she passed it; the massive weight of the blade sunk deep into the stone block of the altar. The blade had been restored to glorious lustre after long patient hours by Cloud before he brought it here to complete a journey home.

Marlene wandered through the rear door and into the room beyond. A set of stairs led up to the wooden beams that ran the length of the building, and off to one side she could see a ladder leading down to a sub-level. Against the wall, directly behind where the altar sat was a rickety set of shelves. Long overlooked and containing nothing truly of value, she nevertheless gravitated over to them. Tiny packets of folded paper were arranged in neat rows, divided by book ends, bent cardboard and seemingly anything else the flower girl could lay her hands on. Marlene carefully opened one, finding it filled with tiny seeds. Here in her hands was seemingly the starting points of Aerith's own garden. A rusted watering can sat on a lower shelf, along with an almost new trowel and a small wicker basket. Just like the one she'd seen her friend carrying in her dream. She picked it up, wondering if the Cetra would mind if she took it.

The light seemed to brighten around her then, the sunlight seemingly more intense, and there was a suggestion of noise back in the main chamber. Had someone come to visit? Marlene peeked carefully through the doorway, not intending to be seen as the light intensified. What was going on with the sun today? Had the WRO decided to remove the plates...?

Her eyes widened as a brunette with a pink ribbon in her hair, wearing a pink dress and a red bolero jacket walked past her. The church dissolved into whiteness and she found herself standing in an endless field of flowers. The girl in pink kept walking until she reached a particular patch of ground, slightly raised up from the field and currently bereft of flowers and grass. She sank down onto her knees, placing the wicker basket beside her and sinking her fingers into the soil, sifting through the loose dirt. Marlene watched entranced; she must have fallen asleep. But had she really walked all the way to Midgar on her own and fallen asleep in the church, or was this all just a pleasing dream just before she woke in the morning?

"Would you like to help?" an incredibly familiar voice asked, and the questioner turned to look at her with a smile, the ribbon bobbing slightly as her head turned. Green eyes gazed at her, and Marlene was in no doubt that this really was Aerith Gainsborough. Her friend turned her attention back to the soil as Barret's daughter dithered. There could be no harm in playing along in this dream... could there? The flower girl turned again.

"Could you at least bring me that basket you have? I need a few things from it." Marlene looked down as she spoke, surprised to see she still had the wicker basket dangling from her hand. She raised it slightly, noting it contained the watering can, now clean and shiny as if new, alongside a dozen of Aerith's hand-made seed packets. The younger girl swallowed, trying to dispel the faint butterflies in her stomach and then padded over to where the older girl was working. The girl in pink glanced up with a smile as the younger girl approached and then wiped her hands clean on a rag from her own basket, before taking the one Marlene held.

"Thank you. It's nice to see you again."

"Oh... you too," Marlene replied not really expecting her mind to throw up this kind of detail. Aerith was now sifting through the basket; she placed the watering can beside her as she read the packet names.

"This one first I think." Carefully she opened the paper and pinched a number of seeds between thumb and forefinger and gently scattered them into the furrows she had been excavating with her fingers. She smoothed the soil back over them and then sprinkled some water over the top. "There." She shuffled sideways quickly, and delved her fingers into the soil again.

Marlene found her voice. "C-can I help?"

The flower girl looked up and smiled. "Of course!" Marlene found herself smiling back and hurried to Aerith's other side kneeling beside her.

"What should I do?" she asked.

"First we have to aerate the soil," her friend replied. "Like this-" Marlene watched as the Cetra's fingers dug into the soil, breaking it up and mixing the deeper soil with that nearer the surface.

"Like this?" Her student tried to mimic the movements; to her dismay she was far less graceful, unintentionally flicking clods of dirt and tiny stones in all directions.

"Almost." Aerith replied softy. "Just... a little more gently." Marlene paused a moment to watch the flower girl's fingers flex and move and then tried to mimic the movements again. "That's it!" The Cetra sounded pleased, and her assistant found herself smiling at this small accomplishment. Now she watched as the brunette dragged furrows in the soil and sprinkled the seeds in place, handing a small number to her companion to mimic this movement too. "Excellent work." The older girl was grinning. "Ready to move onto the next flower?"

"Yes please!"

They continued to plant and water, slowly circling the mound of earth, Marlene preparing the ground and planting seeds alongside Aerith. Once they reached the point they had started from they moved slightly inward, leaning over the cultivated areas to plant more seeds. They took it in turns to change the type of seeds and the size of the planted area; the younger girl eager to sample all the flower types, so the lowest edge of the mound would likely later be a riot of different colours. There was no judgement from the older girl, just a simply indulgence in allowing her companion to make these choices. Soon they had planted seeds across the entire mound.

Aerith sat back onto her haunches appraising the turned up soil with a smile. Marlene watched her friend instead; the Cetra's eyes caught her own as she turned slightly. "Ready for the next step?"

Marlene was confused. "Don't we have to wait for them to grow?"

"Normally, yes, but I'd like to teach you something, so I might cheat a bit. First..." She reached out a hand and put it gently on top of the mound. "Put your hand down like this and close your eyes."

She did as she was asked plunging herself into blackness. No, not quite that dark, the white glare from the surroundings was perceivable through her eyelids even now. Aerith continued to talk. "Now, I would like you to breath deeply and concentrate on your heart-beat."

Marlene drew in a deep breath, holding it and concentrating, straining ears and senses for the rhythmic thump within her chest. With a gasp she exhaled and drew in a new breath, holding it again, ears still straining. "Ah. Not quite like that! Just breath normally..." Her friend's voice sounded suddenly from her left. When had she moved? "Breath in through your nose and out through your mouth," Aerith directed. Her student complied, her head feeling slightly dizzy as she stilled, the only sounds she could hear now were of her own breathing. She caught the end of a heartbeat after a few moments, and then chased her own pulse with her senses. It was curious like this; not so much like when she had run too fast for too long, but more like she was lying on her side in bed and could hear the steady drumbeat through her pillow.

"I've can hear it..."

"Excellent," came the reply. "Now I would like you to concentrate on soil..." The ground was slightly moist beneath her fingers, but soft from where the two of them had sifted and aerated it. "There's another heart-beat there... see if you can find it..."

Aerith's voice had switched sides again, but this time Marlene could hear her walking around, and sense the faint wafts of air as she displaced them. She put the distractions out of her head as she concentrated on her finger-tips and the surface they rested on. Heart-beat? In the ground? She was about to say something when she felt it; nothing as quick or clear as her own, but definitely a heart-like sensation. The pulse of something huge; the ground under her fingers almost seemed to quiver as its intensity peaked and then quietened. It had to be a quake or tremor. There couldn't be a pulse like that underground. She was about to speak when she felt the second wave of it and knew then that this was no quake. The pattern of the beat echoed her own heart so closely; though her pulse raced contrasted with this one. She could still feel her own heart echoing in her chest. Four beats of her own to this new pattern.

"Well done..." Aerith's voice sounded pleased. "You can hear it..."

"...is... is this... ?" She trailed off, not wanting to put into words her suspicion of what she had just felt.

"Yes; that is the pulse of the Lifestream. The heartbeat of the Planet. And you can hear it."

"But-"

"It's okay. And before you ask, you are not an Ancient or a Cetra; you are very human."

"But how can I feel that?"

There was an almost amused note in Aerith's voice now. "I'm afraid history and myth rather exaggerated our nature. My ancestors did craft the spells held in materia, and they did work the land to heal the Planet, but being able to hear the Planet; anyone can do that with patience and guidance. Your father, Cloud, Tifa, and all our friends... Once, years ago, they heard the Planet's call when it was frightened and in danger." She sounded slightly sad now. "My people's time has passed and the custodians of the Planet must now be human. I would like you to use what I teach you to be the first."

"Me? But-"

"Shhh," the flower girl spoke softly. "You already have some idea of why you were called here, why you will be the first. But that doesn't matter. Not yet. For now, I would just like you to open your eyes..." Marlene blinked her eyelids opened and looked in amazement at the mound in front of her; the soil was now interrupted by green shoots and grasses thrusting up from beneath the ground. "This is what you helped to grow..." Aerith said smiling and dropping down beside her once more.

"I... did...?" The young girl looked at the growths in amazement.

"I had to help, and it won't normally be that quick, but you can encourage the flowers with what you were doing. Now for the next step!"

Marlene watched carefully and mimicked Aerith's movements as she sifted the soil again, though this time keeping her fingers close to the surface. It was vital to not damage any of the roots she explained, as she carefully eased shoots away from each other so they wouldn't collide over time and carefully indicated which of the newly growing plants were weeds that needed to be removed. The younger girl picked the concepts up quickly as she and the flower girl re-circled the now green mound, dampening each area with the watering can before they moved on.

"Why didn't you just ask me to come?" Marlene suddenly queried as they worked.

"You mean, why did I show you the church and then guide you over here?" the Cetra's eyes flicked towards her companion as she worked.

"Uh-huh."

Aerith paused and leant back slightly. "So you do accept you're talking to me and not just dreaming?"

Marlene stopped too, now at a loss for words. When had she stopped assuming this was just a dream? "Y-yes..." she stammered, suddenly confused by the implications.

"Don't worry. I would have liked to just ask you to come here... But..." There was a note of melancholy in her voice now. "It's hard to reach out like that; especially to someone without mako in their body. I can still see and hear you all though, but to respond... I contacted you as best as I could with your potential, but I do apologise for not making the invitation clearer. I brought you here so we could talk." She turned to face Marlene then. "It's easiest here."

"I could come visit more often..."

"Thank you," Aerith's smile was grateful. "But please, only come from time to time; I don't want you to get dragged down by the past like Cloud was... Now! The next lesson; close your eyes and concentrate on your heart-beat again." Marlene did as she was asked, fastening onto the beat far quicker this time.

"I've got it..." she said.

"Good. Now locate the Planet's..." Marlene stretched a hand out in between the grasses and shoots, the growths cool beneath her fingers. The growths seemed to amplify the beat; she found it in moments.

"I can hear it again."

"Excellent. Now, I want you to listen for the voices..."

"Voices?"

There was no response. She strained her ears but could hear nothing beyond her own breathing, the beat of her own heart in her chest and the slow pulse of the Planet. She wanted to hold her breath so she could hear better... but no, she'd managed without doing that before. She continued to breath deeply, straining her ears for any sound... There was her breathing, her heart-beat and the deep rolling pulse of the Lifestream... And Aerith walking behind her again. For some reason that sound just overrode all of the others and she felt the sensations drop away as she listened to the soft footfalls the flower girl made as she tended to something.

"Distracted?" came her voice.

Marlene sighed and admitted, "Yes."

"This is harder, but you were doing the right thing. Try and find the Planet's pulse again. This time... concentrate on the feel of it."

"Shouldn't I be listening for voices?" Her student was confused.

"Listening to the Lifestream isn't entirely about what you can hear with your ears... It's..." She paused a moment. "It's difficult to explain what it is. At least for you and until you can hear it. I understand it, but, I don't think I can articulate it." Marlene sensed her move closer before she spoke again. "Listen for the Lifestream's beat. And then focus just on that."

The young girl took a deep breath and began again. It was becoming easier, her own pulse clearly felt within her after a few moments, and the deep roll of the Lifestream under her fingers a second or two later. So, keep breathing, ignore her own heart-beat. She concentrated on the roll of sensation as it crested under her and let her body handle her breathing. The Lifestream was more complex than she'd initially perceived. The pulse wasn't a single sensation as it passed; it was packed threads of smaller individual threads; almost too many to distinguish. Without concentrating it felt like a single movement, but now... now its components were becoming clear.

She felt the wave recede and then waited for the next one. It rose up like an incoming sea and she focused as quickly as she could onto the nearest thread as it raced towards her. It flew past before she could concentrate on just one thread. She waited and tried again, narrowing her range down to five closely packed sensations. Then two. And with a sense of fulfilment she caught the leading edge of the next wave, and one single sensation in amongst the others. There was a sudden shock of contact, of new alien thoughts entering her mind and then the sensation was gone. Marlene gasped.

"That's it," a smiling voice intoned. "Just like that. Don't be afraid; just... 'listen' to what they say."

Marlene found herself nodding and concentrated on the next wave. Thoughts bubbled up into her mind, a strange voice, a strange accent, a strange language? She couldn't distinguish anything clearly but it was as if the thoughts were her own, until they faded and the thread passed away from her. She felt... welcomed.

"You can open your eyes now."

Her eyes blinked open and took in the new sight. The mound was now coated with swirls of flowers and grasses, riots of colour in the amongst the pastel shades of the other flowers here; a distinctly different arrangement to the seemingly infinite field that lay all around her. "Oh!" She gasped as she stared at the flowers.

"Our joint handiwork again," said Aerith as she looked down at the flowers and then to Marlene. "I think they're ready to be picked."

"D-do we have to?" Barret's daughter asked, not wanting to disrupt the display she had helped grow. The girl in pink turned to her in surprise that quickly faded into another smile.

"No. No of course not. Just because I sold the flowers does not mean you need to. This knowledge is yours to do with as you wish." She gazed at the patch of flowers again. "However, I apologise now, but I want you to take one back with you. This too is part of the cycle of life. Remember; the spirits of even dead flowers will return to the Planet to eventually be reborn. So you mustn't think of this as the end."

She leant forward and cleared a space around a purple flower. "Marlene, please concentrate on the Lifestream again..." Marlene closed her eyes and ran through the routine once more; it was almost natural now. "This will feel slightly painful, but I want you to experience what happens..." She heard Aerith move slightly and there was an almost inaudible snap. A shot of pain ran up the young girl's arm and she was about to cry out when she noticed a new thread falling slowly down into the mass of Lifestream below.

"Did you see it?"

"Yes... Was that the flower?"

"It was. It has returned to the Planet as well. This sensation that you feel now, that is what you may experience as someone, some plant or some animal passes on. It might seem scary and it might sound depressing, but it is an essential part of the cycle of life. Death is just as much a part of it as birth, and as you have seen death is not the end."

Marlene nodded, her arm still slightly painful. Aerith spoke again, "There is one final thing I would like you to do. Rather then concentrate on the pulse of the Lifestream, I want you to concentrate on the spaces between..."

"Why?"

"Because the Lifestream does not exist as pulses; the Lifestream is always there. It just becomes easier to sense as it 'beats'. I can't tell you that this will be easy, or that this is truly the best place to practice it, but I have faith in you."

Aerith again stilled as she soon as finished speaking, seemingly holding her breath as Marlene tracked the pulse with her mind and concentrated. This was difficult; she'd been thinking of the gaps between the pulses as dead spaces and she strained to detect anything.

Nothing. No... not quite nothing.

There was a suggestion of noise there, like white noise muffled by distance. Like the sea at night, like rain on pavement, like wind rustling in leaves. And a voice. A familiar voice calling...

"Marlene!"

Her eyes shot open as Cloud thundered across the floorboards to her. She sat up, blinking and looking around her in confusion. She was in the back room of the church, lying on the wooden floorboards beside the shelves, the chamber now gloomy and dark. She felt stiff and sore, her arm slightly numb from where she had been lying on it. The blonde man crouched beside her, eyes anxious.

"Are you okay?"

She frowned at his concern. Why shouldn't she be?

"Yes. I..." she trailed off as she realised she held something in her hand. Cloud sighed and straightened, pulling his phone from his pocket. As he selected the number, Marlene looked down at the purple flower she held and then behind her to the shelves. The wicker basket was still lying there, along with all the seed packets. Had she just dreamed that whole encounter?

"Tifa? I found her. She was at the church. No, Tifa it's okay. She's okay. Yes. Yes. I will. Soon as I can. She really is fine. Can you tell the others? Thanks. We'll be back soon."

As he spoke, she tried to reach out with her mind. How silly to do this, based on a dream like that... She almost gasped as she felt the Lifestream roll under her feet, those threads of sensation wafting and trailing as they passed.

Cloud sighed again as he snapped his phone closed and offered her a hand. "You're going to be in a bit of trouble for this."

Marlene tried to look guilty, but suspected that this would ultimately prove worth it. Her eyes widened slightly at the contact as she took the swordsman's hand. A pulse so similar to the Lifestream below ran through his body; a dizzying, fizzing mix of energy that waxed and waned like the Planet below. Mako eyes looked at her amazed face with concern.

"Are you okay?"

The young girl blinked and then smiled. "Yes."

"Let's get you back. Tifa's been worried..."

"Cloud... Can we take the seeds back with us?"

"Seeds?"

The young girl gestured to the carefully organised rows of paper packets. "They're what Aerith used to grow her flowers. I want to grow flowers too."

He smiled and nodded then. "Okay. I think you might be grounded for a bit after this though."

Marlene barely heard or worried about that as she picked up the basket and lay the dream flower on the shelf. She began filling the basket with the packets, visions of window boxes, plant pots, and a secluded patch of ground dancing in her head. She wanted to begin her own garden immediately.

Cloud reached out and picked up the flower from the shelf, staring at it. It reminded him of something. Something from years ago, something that began... His eyes widened at a memory. "Marlene... Where did you get this flower?"

She paused, considering how best to respond to the question, not sure if she should reveal what she had seen and heard. "I'm... not sure."

"Does it look at all familiar to you?"

"A little," she said frowning, now wondering if she had seen a flower like that before.

"I... I think this is the same type of flower that Aerith sold me when I first met her. The one I gave to you back in Sector Seven." Marlene stopped, staring at the blossom, memories bubbling up from long ago. The imposing man with the mako eyes striding into the bar, fear spiralling through her as she pressed against Tifa's legs and away from him. That is until he reached out with the flower in one hand, his gaze surprisingly gentle despite the eerie glow, tension unwinding from his limbs as he offered her the unexpected present. Papa admonished her a few moments later for not saying thank you straight away, and that had finally broken the ice between them.

"Marlene... I think... I think I can get Tifa to go easy on you. If you could just let me have this flower..."

Marlene nodded, suspecting that this was why Aerith had given it to her. The two of them picked their way back out of the church to Fenrir and then into the evening. New knowledge fizzed and bubbled around her head and she gripped the wicker basket a little tighter; a new garden sprang up in her mind's eye. She would use everything Aerith had taught her to create it.

* * *

A/N:

The title refers to a practice in gardening. Here's the wikipedia definition:

_"Companion planting is the planting of different crops in proximity (in gardening and agriculture), on the theory that they assist each other in nutrient uptake, pest control, pollination, and other factors necessary to increasing crop productivity. Companion planting is a form of polyculture."_

Which had a certain right feeling to it when I was searching for a title for the fic.

There are several fanfics which also draw on Marlene's depicted connection to Aerith, but usually these will include the revelation that Marlene is a distant relative of the Cetra. In a discussion a while ago, ariescelestial raised the head-canon that the powers of a Cetra might be something gained via upbringing and learning rather then something the race were genetically predispositioned towards. I liked the idea and wound up using it as part of this fic to tie into the two highlighted instances when Marlene does exhibit an unusual connection back to Aerith.

Originally this fic was going to be more explicitly based on _Advent Children Complete_ but that idea dropped by the way-side relatively recently as I realised just how surreal it is to have Aerith phone Denzel (and possibly others) up to invite them to the church, so that got left ambiguous and the events tie closer to _Advent Children_. Except of course I put the Buster Sword in the church as per _Advent Children Complete_ (Cloud could still totally do that anyway).


End file.
